Bomb Iran crowd waxing hysterical over prospective nuke deal

 Because what America really needs most is more war!

All the usual Iran-haters are circling the wagons and warning that the doomsday clock is about to strike midnight if the Kerry negotiations reach a successful conclusion.

Here's Charles Krauthammer; he's got this pegged as the "worst deal in American diplomatic history."

Not to be outdone, fellow war-monger John Bolton introduces an international perspective by claiming this deal is "America's Munich." That's code for Kerry is the dupe Chamberlain to Rouhani's Hitler. If Bolton had his druthers he would have bombed Iran years ago.

But wait, those dastardly towel-heads are even worse than that... in fact, they are even worse than ISIS, if such a thing can be imagined! Yup, no less a fear-monger than the Greatest Leader Since Moses came up with that one!

The prospect of a deal is a little more personal for Netanyahu; he's crafted a thirty year political career out of claiming the Iranians are months away from a nuclear weapon.

Wonder what surprises he has in his tool kit to scare his country's voters going forward?

John Kerry attempts to chew gum while riding bike; disaster ensues

For John Kerry, it's just a broken leg.

For the rest of the world, it's an unmitigated disaster. Think about it. Those Iran nuke talks, on hold. Negotiations with Putin over the Ukraine imbroglio, on hold. The war on ISIS, on hold.

All around the world, the news cycle is on hold while Kerry is on the mend.

That's not necessarily a bad thing...

Who's fighting who in Kobani?

I don't know about you, but I'm a little confused by all the space the supposed ISIS siege of the Syrian border town of Kobani has been getting in the news.

For the most part it's a story spun to champion the valorous Kurds and demonize Turkey, because Erdogan refuses to go along with the plan, very popular among beltway strategists at the moment, to supply the Kurds with US weapons.

ISIS already have plenty of US weapons, which at the moment are being targeted by US bombs.

We know that the Kurds are the good guys here, because they are fighting ISIS, although they were never fighting the evil Assad all that hard, and remain on the official US terror list.

The evil Assad, by the way, was not considered all that evil until very recently.

Evil Assad has chit-chat with John Kerry

Evil Assad meets her Maj

So now Assad is a bad guy, and the ISIS moderates we trained and armed have morphed into even badder guys, so we have to fly over Syria to bomb the Syrian petroleum infrastructure, which apparently hurts ISIS, who are really really bad because they do not respect the rights of women, whereas the Kurds are the good guys who although they are a culture that practices female genital mutilation, are otherwise all aboard for the equal rights of women.

Or something like that.

Meanwhile, even though this Kobani deal has been spun as the evil ISIS vs. the hard-pressed Kurds, today it emerges that while Kobani may have been a predominantly Kurdish city, it's not just Kurds fighting ISIS, but other Islamist groups fighting ISIS as well.

Like the al-Raqqa Brigades, who are sometimes linked to al Qaeda and sometimes not, and possibly the al-Nussra Front, who are also sometimes al Qaeda, and sometimes not and sometimes associated with ISIS... gosh, it's confusing!

It would probably be just as true to spin Kobani as an al-Qaeda attack on ISIS, with the Kurds throwing their lot in with Qaeda for the moment, and the US Air Force serving, at least for the moment, as the al-Qaeda Air Force.

At least there's one thing not confusing; every bomb and bullet flying in either direction was paid for directly or indirectly by the US taxpayer!

That's got to warm the hearts of the war profiteers.  

So much "news" BBC can hardly squeeze in latest war on Gaza

I turned on the BBC Word News at noon to get the latest on Operation Protective Edge.

But first I had to be updated on the latest crisis in Afghanistan. Seems Abdullah Abdullah isn't taking the "no" he got at the ballot box for an answer. Instead, he's doing exactly what John Kerry specifically ordered him not to do; declare victory and announce a rival government.

That shows the extent to which American prestige has plummeted among former vassals. In the case of failed-state Afghanistan, this is probably a moot point. Whoever emerges as the "winner" in the party politics we've forced on them will only be handing the country back to the Taliban after the last occupying forces leave.

Interesting news piece, but hardly the most important international story of the day.

Then we had a lengthy bit about the typhoon in Japan.

Then we had an even lengthier bit about the Brazil-Germany match, with reporters on location in both Brazil and Germany.

It was only after the commercial break that we got around to hearing news from Gaza, which wasn't so much "news" as it was separate interviews with Azzam Tamimi explaining why the escalation was Israel's fault, and Israeli ambassador to London Dan Taub explaining why the escalation was the fault of Hamas...

After which, I was no wiser than before.

But apparently there is a much-anticipated football match on this afternoon.

Israel to help Arab neighbors fight terrorism

No, I'm not making that up; here's Pres. Peres quoted in the JPost yesterday;

He said he was certain, however, that if Israel and the Palestinians could resolve their conflict, Israel could be of help to the Palestinians and by extension to the rest of the Arab world in dealing with the problem of terrorism.

It may be uncouth to spell it out, but the man is well into his 91st year, and perhaps not all the marbles are rolling in the same direction anymore.

He was speaking on the occasion of a shadow-state visit by self-anointed US shadow Secretary of State Senator John McCain. As the second most popular American politician in Israel, McCain has assigned himself the task of following John Kerry around on his so-called peace initiative to make sure Kerry doesn't push Netanyahu into giving too much away.

And if that's not funny enough, Netanyahu reaffirmed the obvious in claiming yet again, in case anyone missed the previous ten thousand declarations of same, that Palestinian incitement is the main roadblock to peace. It's a vicious cycle; incitement - another couple hundred settler homes - more incitement - another few hundred settler homes, and so on for forty years now.

Obviously only a moron would expect this cycle to be unwound so long as there is no cessation of Palestinian incitement.

Alas, the Senator from Arizona, perhaps also showing a few signs of marble-management issues, was soon distracted by events in Iraq, claiming in the same brief presser that he was "even more troubled by al-Qaeda's reconquest of Falluja." 

He sees the American withdrawal from Iraq as having been a grave error. The very idea that democracy was going to flourish in an Arab land without US boots on the ground was wishful thinking of the highest order, as any Republican could see at the time.

Fortunately, once Kerry has this Abbas-Netanyahu framework agreement wrapped up, the IDF can start helping the Palestinians and other Arab neigbors fight terrorists. I'm guessing they'll start with Hamas and Hezbollah...

And then on to Falluja!

Friends of Syria club shrinking rapidly

When the "Friends of  Syria" gathered in Turkey with US Secretary of State John Kerry to brainstorm next steps this weekend, a mere eleven friends bothered to send representatives.

There seems to be concern among many former friends that being a "friend" of the Syrian opposition means being a friend of al-Qaeda. This has become an increasingly awkward optics problem for the US in the year since the al-Nusra Front came to prominence.

Without the involvement of the extremists, the armed struggle against Assad would have collapsed long ago. Yet the US thinks it that it can continue to quarterback the anti-Assad forces with the nonsensical claim that it only sends "humanitarian" aid to the rebels.

Today Kerry announced another $123 million in "non-lethal" aid that will include armored vehicles and night-vision goggles, but America's hands remain clean because the actual guns and bullets are delivered to al-Qaeda by US proxies.

Meanwhile, Turkish journo Murat Yetkin invokes the Malian template as a model for direct intervention. While things appear to be moving in that direction, (note the assignment of an American HQ unit to Jordan in the past two weeks) there is an obvious flaw in the Mali model.

It hasn't worked.

Kerry leaves 'em laughing in Baghdad

Note the look of bemused incredulity on the faces of Iraqi PM al-Maliki and his aides.

They're not sure what to think. Traditional Arab customs of hospitality demand that they not laugh the man out of town, but it's not everyday that they come face to face with such woefully misguided thinking.

Kerry thinks he can come and lecture them on what they "must" do?

And if they do as they're told Kerry will permit them into discussions about Syria's future?

Both Kerry's visit and the New York Times' coverage thereof reek of the same hubris that lead the US into their disastrous Iraq adventure in the first place. The embassy where Kerry met the Iraqi delegation stands as a monument to that hubris.

Almost a billion dollars to build and billions more to guard and maintain, the edifice now houses about a third of the staff it was designed for.

It will remain a testament to American overreach long after its inhabitants have moved to more modest accommodations and the Iraqis re-purpose it as something useful.